"the mountain and the sea are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books." -john lubbock
Meet Our Team
The Salish Sea School is committed to cultivating and preserving a culture of diversity, inclusion, and connectedness. We are able to grow and learn better together with a diverse team. We welcome the unique contributions that one can bring in terms of their education, opinions, culture, ethnicity, race, sex, gender identity and expression, nation of origin, age, languages spoken, veteran’s status, color, religion, disability, sexual orientation and beliefs.
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We are stronger together with the collective sum of individual differences, life experiences, knowledge, innovation, self-expression, and talent which ultimately brings about a healthier planet.
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Click on the pictures below to learn more.
Our Location
Our Location: Anacortes, Washington is located on Fidalgo Island, situated halfway between Seattle and Vancouver BC (gold star on map). It is the gateway to the San Juan Islands and the perfect location to launch from to explore the Salish Sea.
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Land Acknowledgement: Our school is located on the traditional land of the Samish Indian Nation people past and present and we honor with gratitude the land itself and the Samish Tribe.
Our programs may occur outside of this region and we honor all Indigenous Peoples to include S'Klallam, Coast Salish, Lummi, Tulalip, Swinomish, Stillaguamish, Skagit, Lekwungen/Songhees, and Te'mexw. Learn more about the local tribes here and here.
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The Local Waterways: We explore the local waterways that are part of an incredibly diverse basin known as the Salish Sea.
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Reference Map for the Salish Sea Bioregion, Aquila Flower, 2020
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What is the Salish Sea?
What is the Salish Sea? The Salish Sea includes the north end of the Strait of Georgia and Desolation Sound in Canada to the south end of Puget Sound in the U.S. and west to the mouth of the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
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The name for the Salish Sea was proposed by a marine biologist by the name of Dr. Bert Webber in 1988. He saw the need to recognize this incredible inland sea as an entire ecosystem that knows no boundaries and relies on the health of the whole.
The Salish Sea pays tribute to the Coast Salish people, a group of ethnically and linguistically related indigenous peoples on the Northwest Pacific coast made up of many tribes with distinct cultures and languages (Coast Salish or Salishan).
The first stewards of the area have a long history of knowledge from hundreds of generations of ancestors about how to best use the resources of this land.
The name The Salish Sea was officially adopted by the governments of British Columbia and Washington in 2009.
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It is home to hundreds of islands, 200+ different species of fish, 100+ different species of bird, 20+ different species of marine mammals, and over 3,000 different species of invertebrates.
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A Fresh & Salty Basin
The foundation of this estuarine ecosystem lies in the interaction between freshwater discharges from rivers flowing into the inland sea and saltwater from the Pacific Ocean. This blend of fresh and saltwater creates vital conditions that support a vast diversity of life in the Salish Sea.
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As rivers flow into salt marshes, wetlands, and bays, they deliver essential nutrients collected from the fertile valleys they traverse. This nutrient-rich exchange makes estuaries among the most productive ecosystems in the world.
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Unfortunately, summer freshwater flows in the Salish Sea are decreasing due to reduced rainfall, depleted snowpack, and rising temperatures. This low summer flow can impact wildlife, including important salmon runs, and strain water supplies for residential, agricultural, and industrial needs.
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This animation from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) shows the incredible interaction as the fresh water form the rivers (blue) and the salt water from the ocean (red) mix, creating a circulation of water, imperative for the estuarine ecosystem.
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Did you know?
The biggest freshwater discharge in the Salish Sea is from the Fraser River in Canada, with an annual fresh water discharge at its mouth of 125,000 cu ft/s and 20 million tons of sediment.
The Land of Falling Waters
"We live here in a great bowl of green waters. From the crestlines of mountain ranges on either side, many rivers flow down to an inland sea. Living in the lowlands, you can see the place as a whole--glint of light off open waters, feel "The Wall" rising in back of you all around. Mountains frame the place--you can reach out to touch the crest of the Cascades to the east, the B.C. Coast Range to the north, the Vancouver Island Ranges to the northwest, and the Olympics to the west...
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Mountains-Rivers-Islands-Sea & Sky is the song this place sings. (It) is one of the freshest and most diverse places on earth, a pulsing field or matrix of richly packed dynamic ecosystems."
-David McCloskey, The Ish River Map Story
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Map: David McCloskey, Cascadia Institute, cascade.institute@gmail.com
The Land of Watersheds
'Watershed' generally means the entire area draining to a given point (typically the mouth of a river or stream). This includes the land area that channels rainfall and snowmelt to bodies of water that outflow to the sea.
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It is important to remember that everything upstream ends up downstream and into the Salish Sea. All of the stormwater runoff within a watershed drains to other bodies of water, impacting the water quality and all the life within.
Map: Water Resource Inventory Areas (WRIA). The Washington State Legislature defines Puget Sound as WRIA 1-19. These areas were first developed in 1970 and updated most recently in 2000. Map: Kris Symer. Data source: WAECY.
estuary
where the river meets the sea
Estuaries are among the most productive ecosystems in the world as the water filtering through them brings in important nutrients collected on its journey through the mountains, land, and to the sea.
Unfortunately, this water also picks up harmful pollutants on this voyage, depositing it directly into estuaries.
For these reasons, estuaries are some of the most fertile ecosystems on Earth, yet they may also be some of the most polluted.
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This is especially seen in the Puget Sound basin and overall Salish Sea.